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https://github.com/jbush001/rustnetworkstack

User space network stack in Rust.
https://github.com/jbush001/rustnetworkstack

Last synced: 3 months ago
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User space network stack in Rust.

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README 

          
This is a toy user space TCP/IP network stack.



It's my first real Rust program (other than simple tutorials). I've

been wanting to dig into Rust more deeply with a non-trival project

for a while, and this one seemed interesting. I have written a network

stack before many years ago but that was in C.



I've also recently gotten access to Github Copilot and have been using it

quite a bit on this, which has been an interesting experience. It seems to

struggle with the reasoning about the borrow checker as much as humans, often

generating obviously incorrect code (and, unfortunately, sometimes subtly

incorrect). Rust's ownership and borrowing semantics require building an

internal mental model and reasoning about it, and it's still unclear if

current LLMs are capable of this. Also, I'd guess these models probably have

much less Rust in their training data. I'm dubious LLMs will replace

programmers in the short term as some have predicted.



This uses the TUN driver on Linux to provide acccess to a network

interface for testing .

This driver presents a virtual network interface (looking roughly like an

Ethernet card) to the host operating system. This program then emulates a

remote host on that virtual network. This allows this stack to communicate

with programs running on the host.



    +----------------------+              +--------------------+

    |       netstack       |              |  Host test program |

    |     (this program)   |              |                    |

    +----------------------+              +--------------------+

    +------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

    |     /dev/net/tun             |                                   |

    |          ^                   |           Network Stack           |

    |          |                   |                                   |

    |          |                   +-----------------------------------+

    |          |                                   ^                   |

    |          |             Host Kernel           |                   |

    |          |                                   |                   |

    |          +-----------------------------------+                   |

    |                                                                  |

    +------------------------------------------------------------------+



IP bridging (),

should also allow this stack to communicate with other machines on the

Internet, although I haven't done that.



## Setup



Install Rust: 



Install other utilities:



    sudo apt install -y tcpdump gnuplot



## Running



Build



    cargo build



Run unit tests:



    cargo test



Run benchmark:



    cargo bench



The network stack must be run with root privileges, as the TUN device is

not accessible to regular users. It's probably possible to make configuration

changes to avoid that, but I haven't done that.



You can also run tcpdump in another window to monitor traffic (this has to be

invoked after netstack is running, otherwise the interface will not exist).



    sudo tcpdump -i tun0 -v



### Ping



    sudo ./target/debug/udp_echo &



Now try pinging:



    $ ping 10.0.0.2

    PING 10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2) 56(84) bytes of data.

    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.95 ms

    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.40 ms

    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.01 ms

    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.10 ms



Or IPv6



    $ ping fe80::2%tun0



At the end of this test (As with any), you can kill the server

with kill %1 (or just launch it in another terminal window so

you can use ctrl-C)



### UDP



    sudo ./target/debug/udp_echo &

    python3 scripts/udp_test.py 10.0.0.2



To test IPv6:



    sudo ./target/debug/udp_echo v6 &

    python3 scripts/udp_test.py fe80::2 v6



### TCP Download 1



    python3 scripts/chargen_server.py &

    sudo ./target/debug/tcp_bulk_download



Press a key to start the transfer



To test IPv6:



    python3 scripts/chargen_server.py v6 &

    sudo ./target/debug/tcp_bulk_download v6



### TCP Download 2



    python3 -m http.server 3000 &

    sudo ./target/debug/tcp_bulk_download



(http.server doesn't support IPv6)



### TCP Upload



    python3 scripts/sink_server.py 3000 &

    sudo ./target/debug/tcp_bulk_upload



(add v6 param as above)